


Teyla's Memoirs

by neierathima



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-24
Updated: 2012-03-24
Packaged: 2017-11-02 10:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neierathima/pseuds/neierathima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teyla looking back on her history in Atlantis, told through four vignettes</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teyla's Memoirs

**We Were Soldiers Once... and Young**

Her granddaughter leads her guest into the small garden, introducing him politely, then sketching a short bow before leaving. It's a mere formality, Teyla's guest comes to see her often, he is both welcome to move freely in her home and familiar with the way, but Teyla's granddaughter wouldn't dream of being anything but completely proper. 

Teyla's laughs softly as Ronon settles himself beside her, sprawling as his wont, though perhaps more carefully than when she first knew him. He grunts a query at her. She shakes her head, laughing, then imitates a bow with a short nod of her head. Ronon gets it, eyes rolling. Even though they no longer work together, they are still so familiar that words are excessive to convey meaning.

They sit for awhile silently before they both start speaking, words running over each other. 

"How are Rodney and John?" 

"You remarried yet?" 

Ronon smiles, white teeth showing, and Teyla laughs so hard her side hurts. She remembers a time she and Ronon both would not have shown joy so freely as this. She remembers a time when they had no joy to share. 

"No, Ronon, I have not yet taken another husband." 

As a result of Michael's experiments, all the hybrids had a shortened life span, and though the doctors had worked furiously, after less than twenty years together, Kanaan had taken ill and died. Teyla had never forgotten that it was far better than many in the Pegasus galaxy ever received. After an appropriate mourning period she had been shocked to discover herself inundated with suitors from all over the Pegasus galaxy, because in those years the people living on Atlantis had made great strides, confirming the end of Wraith domination in the galaxy, as well as working to spread development and trade among the worlds. But while she had many offers, she had taken no husband, and over the years the offers had become less. 

While she could laugh about them now, for several years after those offers had started, she and her children had hidden away in Ronon's sanctuary. After one prolonged engagement with a faction of Wraith, the nature of Atlantis had changed dramatically. The battle had been decisive, securing Atlantis' victory over the Wraith, as well as their place in the Pegasus galaxy, but it had left John crippled, missing his left eye, and left leg below the knee. Rodney, too, had been afflicted, receiving a wound that would not heal correctly, despite all efforts. As the mood of Atlantis changed from military to diplomatic, John struggled with his scars, a government that wanted to retire him, and a galaxy that had no use for him in peacetime. Rodney too tried to continue working, but stress made him relapse, and he began spending as much time in the infirmary as out of it. Eventually, Ronon had gathered them both up, taking them to an empty world he had claimed as his own, and retiring from active Pegasus politics altogether. The disappearance of three of Atlantis' senior team all at once had become a legend in it's own right, only added to by the fact that few were allowed to visit their home. Teyla had visited them often, and had not begrudged them the peace they had found there, though her own calling as a diplomat and ambassador was truly just beginning. 

Lost in memories, she returned to the present to find Ronon's penetrating gaze on her. He cocked his head questioningly. She smiled, shaking her head. 

"I was merely remembering. How we were, how we came to be here." 

Ronon smiled wryly. 

"They didn't realize it was impossible, and we were too dumb to die." 

Teyla laughed again. Overhead, several small craft zipped by, trailing colorful plumes behind them. Teyla followed the little planes as they dove around each other in the midday sun, flying low over the city that set nestled like a jewel in the valley. In the center square a tiny flash of blue light caught her eye, and Teyla thought she could her a joyful cry go up, one of homecoming, before fading back into the sounds of a living world. 

**Bombs Bursting in Air**

Teyla stared out over the water, watching the fireworks break and sparkle in the sky. Even after all these years she could not help but think of them as signs of war, not celebration. 

Those on the deck below her had no such reservations, while she and her two companions stood silent vigil, they cavorted, laughing, dancing with joyous remembered victory. 

Teyla could not help a little laugh as her mind took her back. 

"Do you remember?" 

She needed to say no more than that, Ronon and John took her meaning perfectly. 

John grinned, "God, he could barely walk. I thought Keller was going to kill him." 

Ronon spread his arms wide, waving an mock-angry fist at the revelers. 

Teyla's smile turned bittersweet. 

"And then he laughed. Oh, and danced." 

John was silent, and when Ronon spoke his voice was soft, even reverent. 

"Not that he'd call it that." 

They stood still for a moment, gone to a shared past, and every now and then one of the people would look up at their grey-haired heroes, posed like statues against the spires of Atlantis. 

After several long minutes, Teyla looked down at the crowds, then up at the fireworks still blazing above them. She gave a great whoop and marched down the stairs, dancing and yelling into the heavens. Behind her Ronon and John followed. 

They danced all night, oblivious to the stunned crowd, until the fireworks were overtaken by the sun, supporting each other. As they danced, they laughed, and remembered, and were glad. 

**With No Logical End**

 

Teyla watched her son-in-law attempt to explain ripples in space-time to his niece. He was Radek's protege, and very bright, but Teyla's granddaughter, appropriately named Meredith, was a tiny copy of Rodney, and she was not appeased by anything less than a full explanation, despite only being nine years old. Her sister Chara, however, quickly grew bored with it, and ran on wobbly legs towards her. Teyla caught the child in her arms, pulling her close and hugging her. Eventually, Chara tugged on her sleeve. Teyla turned to face her. 

"Tell me 'bout Granpa Kanaan. Tell me about how you got married." 

"Again?" 

Chara nodded, settling into her grandmother's arms for a story, and Teyla allowed herself to muse that time really did have ripples. 

\---

Teyla stood watching as the body was sent through the wormhole. Though tears threatened, she did not let them spill. Even now it was a privilege to know the manner of ones death.

John leaned closer to her, and whispered in her ear. 

"Twenty years Teyla, was about him was worth it? Worth knowing." 

She knew he asked not to upset her, but to remind her of that which was good between her and her husband, in his own emotionally clumsy way.

\----

Teyla let herself relax against the pillows as she watched her husband introduce their three year old son to their new daughter. Though she was still tired from the birth, she could not stand to sleep while her family bonded near her. 

Kanaan brought the girl, Tagan, over to her. He then sat Torren between them. Kanaan looked on in awe as Teyla nursed their child. Teyla grinned at him. 

"It is not anything you have not seen before." 

"But I am still amazed at it. Amazed that you would marry me at all. I cannot figure out why you would." 

She couldn't help her sly grin. 

\----

Teyla watched Dr. Keller study the results of her scan on the computer. Though nothing seemed amiss, she could not help feeling a little apprehensive. 

Keller turned to her with apologetic eyes.

"This is gonna take awhile to finish. Maybe you could, uh, tell me about him?" 

 

\-----

Teyla scanned the woods around her, searching for any sign of pursuit. She did not think there would be, she was the best at this game in the village, and could usually tell where they other children were, but it would not help to become cocky. As she made her way around a blind corner, something dropped out of the tree in front of her. 

Teyla almost screamed. It was a boy, obviously, one of the ones from the group they had joined with after the latest culling. But aside from wearing the traditional Wraith mask, he was also nearly naked, but for his underclothes and some sort of strange grass skirt and crown. That, and the vibrant paint covering his bare chest. He was also doing some sort of dance that was perhaps supposed to be intimidating. 

She could not help herself. Teyla burst out laughing. She laughed so hard her sides her, she laughed until she could no longer stand and she laughed as she fell to the ground. When she recovered her breath, the boy was leaning over her, smiling widely.

"Who are you? Why are you dressed like that?" 

He smiled even wider as he helped her up. 

"I'm Kanaan. And you're Teyla. They said you don't laugh." 

"You did all of this just to make me laugh?" 

He - Kanaan- nodded, and seven year old Teyla decided then that she would marry him. 

\-------

Chara wiggled impatiently on her lap, and in retaliation Teyla tickled her stomach, causing her granddaughter to laugh. Teyla laughed with her, the sound rippling through the garden, joined by the laughter of all her family and echoed back to her, greater than it's origin.

 

**They Say He Made a Good End**

"Grandmother, please, you don't have to do that yourself, I can have someone take care of the weeds." 

Teyla allowed Elizabeth to bring her a cushion and a glass of cold tea, but while she allowed those signs of her age, she did not let her great-grandaughter dissuade her from her appointed task. Eventually, Elizabeth gave up trying to convince her and began helping her pull weeds out of the small ornamental garden. 

"Really, Grandmother, I don't know why you insist on keeping violets, they're weeds themselves." 

To Teyla's mind, it was both heartening and disappointing that her own grandchild could be so willing to discard something of use. She was glad that her people no longer had to be careful with medicines, yet to have forgotten such a great part of who they were. She lightly scolded her granddaughter. 

"These Violets can be used to make a paste which will soothe muscles and help restore the use of injured limbs." 

Elizabeth, with all her fifteen years, rolled her eyes. 

"I know, Grandmother, but all the violets grown to make medicines are done in laboratory green houses, for purity. There's no need to have your own on hand." 

From up near the house, someone called for Elizabeth, and she ran off with a familiar curse. Though she had been named for her old friend, Teyla had often though that her granddaughter more closely resembled Rodney in her mannerisms. 

When she had left, Teyla sat contemplating the flowers. Though in truth there was no need for them now, she could remember a time when she had searched every world possible for the little weeds. She had ground them into paste, mixed and chopped until her fingers were stained purple and more than half numb. She had hated it, but she had not once complained, not with John lying pale and frightened in the infirmary. 

With so few medicines available, he had grit his teeth and gone without pain relievers. He could not walk, not in such agony, and so he had run his little army - Sheppard's Irregulars, as Lorne had labeled it - from his bed and through Ronon, the muscle wasting away every day he could not move. Teyla had recalled the herbal remedy, feeling a fool for having forgotten in the first place. 

That time together each day had grown from silent, embarrassed agony, to an hour of shared meditation until the day contact had been reestablished with Earth, for good, and new medicines had become available. John had asked her what the paste was made of and she remembered the way he had bitterly laughed when she had told him they were called Torren - Healing Violets. 

"So they don't wither when our fathers die."

She had become upset, thinking it a slight against her father's name, and left him there. They had not spoken for several weeks, though they both claimed it was due to busyness. 

Teyla felt her finger tingle, and looked down. She had shredded one of the flowers in her hand, spreading bright purple over her fingers. Some had gotten in a small cut, and was spreading numbness along her thumb. She dropped the remains of the flower, and carefully cut several more. 

She would put them in the clear vase and watch as they stained the water purple. She would not take them down until they had withered completely.


End file.
